96: THE WOUND IN THE WORLD

(Kihrin’s story)

I followed the wizard. I didn’t really feel like it was optional, and I wasn’t eager to see what he could probably do to enforce our cooperation. If he’d meant to kill us …

Well, he was Grizzst. If he meant to kill us, we’d be dead. And that whole business about Thaena was cute and all, but I was well aware there were ways to “kill” a person that didn’t send their soul to the Afterlife.

I forgot all of that the moment we stepped through the gate.

Grizzst had summoned up another one of his rainbow fields of energy, much like the field surrounding the Arena back in the Capital. “Don’t leave the circle,” he told us. “You wouldn’t last more than a second or two.”

All around us was … ice.

That doesn’t really do the scene justice.

Imagine a world covered in ice, but where what little light met the surface was red, so everything looked like it had been crafted from glaciers of blood. The smell of cold was crisp and so sharp as to be physically painful, a sign of a cold so deep, it was outside anything I had ever experienced before. This was the cold of lands that had never seen a spring, would never know the sun’s warmth, had never, ever thawed. These were lands that would take all the warmth they could steal from every living thing and leave behind only tombs and snow.

And ahead of us in this land of immense and ponderous red winter, lay a chasm.

I had no idea how deep it was. It was a crack splitting the land, and as I watched, pieces of that land—bits of glacier, boulder, bedrock—broke away and fell down into that giant ravine.

“It’s the Chasm,” Thurvishar said. His eyes were wide with horror.

I blinked at him, then looked back at the scene. I realized it did look like the Chasm—a huge fissure that split the Afterlife and that seemed to be slowly advancing, expanding …

“This is the Nythrawl Wound,” Grizzst explained. He grimaced and wiped at his mouth. “It’s the point where the demons broke into the Living World from the Afterlife, just like the Chasm in the Afterlife is the point where they broke into our universe from theirs.” He glanced back at us. “It’s growing, you see. And it’s never going to stop.”

I felt a dull ache deep inside me. “It’s stealing heat.”

“Oh, not just heat. Everything. Energy of all kinds. Matter too. That other universe is apparently a cold one, and this is a rip in the very fabric of reality. Our universe is slowly falling into theirs.” Grizzst shook his head. “Not even the demons want to live in their universe. I’m not sure anything can.”

“When did this start?” Thurvishar turned back to Grizzst, tearing his gaze away from the Wound.

“As soon as the demons arrived,” Grizzst said. “We just didn’t understand the danger. And even later on, we thought the demons were the problem and not just a symptom. We thought that even when this”—he gestured toward the Wound—“got so bad, it forced us all to desert Nythrawl and go to the other continents. We fought the demons, tried to do something about them, fucked that up good. All the while, this disaster has been growing and will keep growing until it probably destroys the whole damn universe. Although we’ll be long gone by the time that happens.”

I felt the cold even through his magical barrier. The red light gave everything a horrible cast that seemed to highlight the danger of his warning.

I took a deep breath, regretted it immediately as the cold stabbed daggers into my lungs. “And Vol Karoth?”

“Relos Var eventually explained it to me. It’s messed up, but…” The wizard shrugged. “Practical. Very practical. We’re pretty sure the Wound can only be closed from the other side, and it’s going to require an enormous amount of energy to do it. So Var had to create something capable of holding that much energy. Something capable of the kind of precision control necessary to use it the right way.”

I closed my eyes and felt sick.

“I bet it never occurred to the fucking bastard to just ask me to help.”

Grizzst snorted. “Would you have said yes?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “We’ll never know, will we?”

“And I assume Vol Karoth would stay on the other side of the Wound once it’s closed,” Thurvishar said.

Our eyes met. I could tell he was every bit as horrified as I was.

“Yeah, that’s the plan. A plan that can’t move forward until he’s fucking well freed, can it?”

Thurvishar shouted, “Are you kidding me? It’s a stupid plan!”

I heard a noise off in the distance, something other than the grinding of ice calving off the glaciers and falling down into the Wound. I tried to listen to it, to understand it, took a step in that direction.

I stopped myself as I realized what I was hearing: a droning sound, almost like a croon.

“We need to leave right now,” I said.

I could feel the pull of it. And I damn well knew that could only mean one thing.

Unfortunately, this time, I had far less warning than back in the Blight.

Vol Karoth appeared just outside Grizzst’s field.

The barrier must have provided some protection, which is the only reason I can come up with for why Grizzst didn’t die instantly. Time stretched out. I could feel Vol Karoth’s mind trying to sync with mine.

Come back. Join me.

Grizzst started moving his fingers, no doubt the beginning of a gate spell we could use to escape, but I knew he’d never complete it in time.

I stepped in front of Grizzst and pressed my hand against the wall of energy. It felt like pressing my hand against a wall of ice, but I wanted to push through into what lay beyond. I wanted to do exactly what Vol Karoth asked and go to him.

I resisted that urge with everything in me.

“Go back home!” I screamed. “I’m busy!”

I felt the time differences between us insert themselves. There was a beat of hesitation from Vol Karoth, a pause. Confusion.

He vanished.

All was quiet, save for the sound of our breathing and the cracking of the world falling away into nothing. All three of us just stood there like we’d never seen the end of the world before.

“Did you just send Vol Karoth to his room like he was a gods-damn four-year-old?” Grizzst asked.

“Uh…” I was speechless.

“Yes,” Thurvishar answered. “Definitely yes. He did that, yes.”

“Right,” Grizzst said. “That’s what I thought too.”

I stared out at the rest of frozen Nythrawl, but all I could think about was the words of the Old Man, Sharanakal, so many years before: You are Vol Karoth’s Cornerstone.

I was increasingly convinced that he hadn’t been speaking in metaphor.

Grizzst shook his head as he finished casting the spell. “Come on, you two. Evidently, we really do need to talk.”